An emotionally charged, tautly composed debut thriller about motherhood, madness, and the myth of the perfect life
A mother moves to Geneva with her husband and their two young children. In their beautiful new rented apartment, surrounded by their rented furniture, and several Swiss instructions to maintain quiet, she finds herself totally isolated. Her husband’s job means he is almost never present, and her entire world is caring for her children—making sure they are happy and fed and comfortable, and that they can be seen as the happy, well-fed, comfortable family they should be. Everything is perfect.
But, of course, it’s not. The isolation, the sleeplessness, the demands of two people under two are getting to Erika. She has never been so alone, and once the children are asleep, there are just too many hours to fill until morning . . .
Kyra Wilder’s Little BandagedDays is a beautifully written, painfully claustrophobic story about a woman’s descent into madness. Unpredictable, frighteningly compelling, and brutally honest, it grapples with the harsh conditions of motherhood and this mother’s own identity, and as the novel continues, we begin to wonder just what exactly Erika might be driven to do.
Praise
“Kyra Wilder artfully cranks up the tension, so you don't quite know when you begin to hold your breath. A chilling read.”bestselling author of My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite
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“Compelling . . . Part metaphor for modern life, part lament for the lost wildness of life, this novel demonstrates both writing chops and deeper themes. Wilder is a writer to watch.”bestselling author of The Child Finder, Rene Denfeld
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“This debut novel about a woman’s emotional disintegration is gripping, observant, wonderfully written—and extravagantly cruel.”Guardian
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“Beautifully written and frighteningly honest, this feverish debut delivers a brave appraisal of a woman’s spiral into madness.”Sunday Express / S Magazine
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“A fantastically visceral and vivid account of the onset of madness set against the backdrop of a polite, middle-class setting: the mundane refracted through the hallucinatory.”author of The Squeeze, Lesley Glaister
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"It's a haunting nailbiter about motherhood, alienation, and (in)sanity."Buzzfeed
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“Beautifully written, Little Bandaged Days is unpredictable, compelling, and brutally honest. The painfully claustrophobic story tells the harsh conditions of motherhood and this mother’s own identity."Brooklyn Digest
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